Chassey entered the breakfast room. “Lord Montaigne has arrived, Miss Watson.”
“Thank you, Chassey.” But she knew she could not leave until she had explained the matter to Eloisa. Quickly, she went over what Augustus had told her yesterday—the maids, how he hadn’t actually bedded any of them, how he had let the scandal sheets ruin his reputation.
“Extraordinary,” Eloisa said when she was done. “And you believe him?”
For a moment, silence filled the breakfast room. When Eloisa asked the question, it felt like the question of her own soul. Did she believe him?
“I do,” she said, finally, exhaling the words on a breath.
Eloisa nodded, her expression solemn. “Very well. I trust your judgment. But, still, all the same—for the love of god, Olivia, be careful.”
*
Olivia had beenuncertain what a ride with the Earl of Montaigne in Hyde Park would entail. During their summer together, they hadn’t done activities such as these. Now he was seated beside her, bowing slightly to the aristocrats who passed them in their own conveyances. They looked at her with curiosity. Olivia suspected they hadn’t yet placed her. They had driven the same path twice already and the noonday sun beat down uncomfortably on her forehead. But such physical discomfort was nothing in comparison to what she felt when they passed each carriage, waiting for a stare of recognition or a sneer.
They had lost Natasha and Percy almost immediately upon entrance into the park. Olivia said a silent prayer that the girl was following her mother’s edict to stick to the public paths. Eloisa had let Natasha forgo the chaperone given the public nature of the venture and Olivia feared the scene that would ensue if her daughter flouted the rules.
Augustus looked over at her and cleared his throat. They had tried several subjects without success: the opera (neither of them were particularly avid on the subject); France (she knew it well, but he had only gone there as a drunken young man years ago and, thus, had retained little impression of the place); and books (neither of them, as it turned out, were great readers). Every subject that touched on the past felt embargoed. And, oddly, she sensed that he felt just as uncomfortable being respectable as she did. The perspiration on his brow and the slight shake of his hands when he maneuvered the reins testified to it.
As the curricle made to return to the same loop they had already traversed twice, Olivia decided to take action. She had thought being courted by Augustus would be many things—but boring hadn’t been a possibility that she had considered. If she followed through with her plan to become Madame Laurent, she would have a lifetime of boredom ahead of her. A little excitement was why she had consented to this plan in the first place.
“Let us take the path towards the Serpentine,” she said, quickly, and he jerked back, as if she had touched him unexpectedly.
“Are you sure?”
That path, of course, wended away from prying eyes and deeper into the park.
“Yes. Please.”
He slowed but did not take the path.
“I—well—we said—I said, in your parlor, that I would court you—respectably, and this path—it is not seen as—if you were—”
She had to hold back from gaping at him. Who would believe that this man, known as the worst rake in London, had the capacity to stutter about respectable pathways in Hyde Park?
“I am not a debutante, Lord Montaigne. And this sun will melt me if I sit under it any longer. I understand the back paths are shaded.”
He gave a curt nod and headed down the nearest path that led to the river.
“My apologies, Miss Watson, for being so—I only want to make sure that I am—that youfeelrespected—”
Lord have mercy, Olivia thought. Here, she had thought she had consented to be courted by a scoundrel.
“I think, at this point, you may call me Olivia.”
“It would a great honor,” he said, rapidly, his eyes on the road. “I wish very much that you would call me Augustus.”
Earlier this morning, she might have told herself she would decline such a request from him. That she would make him suffer for longer, given all that had passed between them. But that was before she had heard him stammer. Twice.
“Very well, Augustus.”
At her use of his Christian name, she saw his fist clench around the reins. She waited for him to speak more, but he said nothing.
They drove on in silence. Despite this agreement over their names, they did not seem any nearer to knowing how to speak to one another. But the road here was shaded and much more pleasant. It made the silence between them feel easier.
Finally, he did speak.
“Have you renewed any old acquaintances since returning to England?”
